music

The soul and jazz singer Ledisi will perform twice this summer at The Saratoga Performing Arts Center in Saratoga Springs, New York.This weekend she’ll take the amphitheater stage at SPAC as part of the 2022 Freihofer's Saratoga Jazz Festival on Sunday, June 26th. She’ll return on August 3 with the Philadelphia Orchestra with her renowned “Ledisi Sings Nina” concert - a tribute to Nina Simone, which she’s also released as an album and a version was filmed for PBS as “Ledisi Live: A Tribute to Nina Simone.”Ledisi is an acclaimed and award-winning musician and actor and she joins us to talk about her career, her music, and her philosophy.

Set in an apple orchard in the foothills of the Berkshires, PS21: Performance Spaces for the 21st Century presents dance, music, and theater. PS21 programming also includes free performances for kids, dance, and theater workshops, and movie screenings. PS21 has returned with an adventurous season of programming full of surprises and wonder. Elena Siyanko is the Artistic & Executive Director of PS21.

The Freihofer's Saratoga Jazz Festival returns to the Saratoga Performing Arts Center with two full days of programming on two stages – this Saturday and Sunday, June 25 and 26, the festival is celebrating its 45th year at SPAC. Wynton Marsalis - managing and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center and a world-renowned trumpeter and composer will be headlining Sunday’s show with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Wynton Marsalis joins us.

In 2017, Terri Lyne Carrington founded the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, a program at the distinguished Boston school premised on dismantling a patriarchal system that’s disenfranchised female and nonbinary performers.

Will Hermes is a long-time music writer and contributor to Rolling Stone, NPR, The New York Times, and Pitchfork. He is the author of "Love Goes to Buildings on Fire" and an upcoming biography of Lou Reed. He joins us often to share his expertise and at year's end we call on him to let us know what music we may have missed.Spotify Playlist:WAMC summer 2022

Madeleine Peyroux is an American jazz singer and songwriter who began her career as a teenager on the streets of Paris. She found mainstream success in 2004 when her album Careless Love hit and she’s celebrating that album and the songs collected on it in her pandemic-delayed “Careless Love Forever” tour.Peyroux is the type of timeless and expressive singer who transports listeners with the emotionality of her performance. The Careless Love Forever tour will bring Madeleine Peyroux to The Mahaiwe in Great Barrington, Massachusetts on Friday, May 27 at 8 p.m.

What is said to be the largest ever record fair in Berkshire County will be held in Dalton, Massachusetts Sunday.

Singer and songwriter, Janis Ian, had her initial burst of fame as a teenager with her self-titled 1967 debut album and its hit single "Society's Child." She returned to the public eye in the mid-'70s with deeply personal songs about life and relationships on albums like “Stars” (1974) and “Between the Lines” (1975) - which featured her best known song, “At Seventeen.”Her self-determined final album “The Light at the End of the Line” was released in January on her label Rude Girl Records. She is traveling the world on her farewell tour and will play tonight, Friday, and Saturday evenings at Caffè Lena in Saratoga Springs, New York.

Saratoga Performing Arts Center and Skidmore College are presenting trailblazing pianist, speaker and NPR’s Amplify co-host, Lara Downes for a special appearance on April 14, 2022 at 7:30 p.m. at the Arthur Zankel Music Center. Downes’ performance explores the landscape of American music from George Gershwin and Morton Gould to Billie Holiday, Scott Joplin, and Florence Price, giving voice to underrepresented and forgotten artists alongside their contemporaries. Downes will return to Saratoga on August 4th, 2022 for her SPAC debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra where she’ll perform two premieres: The Strayhorn Concerto and Price’s Piano Concerto in One Movement.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has snarled the supply chain for many products. WAMC’s Southern Adirondack Bureau Chief Lucas Willard reports on how some local retailers are dealing with a shortage in a century-old technology.